About FOCOM

Mission

The mission of the collaboration is to achieve innovative breakthroughs in our knowledge about how food and the brain influence each other. This will lead to novel ways to develop foods, enable early diagnosis of obesity, eating disorders and age-related disorders (cognitive decline and mood). To this end, we will develop relevant test setups and models, and possible food ingredients or supplements that can both capture and influence these relations.

Vision

The partners possess knowledge about food and nutrition and brain mechanisms relating to perception, decision making and cognition. The interaction between food products and the corresponding brain responses combined with recent technological breakthroughs can deliver a new generation of products and services with a big economical and societal impact. FOCOM contributes to what is commercially seen as the ‘Holy Grail’ of the food industry: understanding the relationship between product properties and food preferences (liking) and using that understanding to optimise food products with respect to the consumer’s perspective. Additionally, FOCOM provides an important contribution to big societal interests such as obesity and healthy ageing.